A report by the BBC today confirmed that The Church of England has formally adopted legislation which means its first female bishops could be ordained next year. The amendment was passed with a show of hands at the general synod. The first women priests were ordained in 1994, but to date they have not been able to take on the Church's most senior roles. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the move meant the start of "a new way of being the church". Well, God knows you need one mate! Anyway, let them have Women Bishops I say, why not a hermaphrodite Bishop? There's a real story! A parrot Bishop! No a Gay, Parrot Bishop! I don't care; it's just another one I'm not going to listen to! Perhaps the bigger question is why our institutions and religions are crumbling despite all of the cheap publicity stunts like this? Could it be that they are just no longer relevant? I mean the basic principles of religion; love and forgiveness are good but who needs the dogma? People are still evolving so maybe beliefs formed 2'000 years ago are not really applicable or relevant these days. Is there really just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another but not enough to make them love?
Could it also be that along with The Banks, the Police, the Government and Politicians, Journalists and the Media in general, 1970's Pop Stars and Light entertainment Personality's, Property developers, Estate agents, plumbers, car mechanics, (I could go on ad infinitum!) Could it be that along with this lot the Church is just not trusted anymore? It sometimes seems to me that there are only two types of people left in the world, the extremists and the apathetic. I'm afraid I find myself residing clearly and cynically in the latter for some time now. When recently filling in a questionnaire I came to the section asking which religious denomination I belonged to. I felt moved to declare myself a 'lapsed agnostic'. I really did. How can we expect Morality and Neighborly caring from the masses when our own elected leaders, legal forces and many other previously held up pillars of society and so called role models can't live up to any standards themselves?
In May 2011 it was revealed the C of E had knowingly ordained known paedophile Roy Cotton. (See link below) so how can a woman Bishop top that? True the Catholics are probably fairing even worse though has in June this year Pope Francis issued his strongest words so far on his church and child abuse saying that he believed one in fifty priests in the Catholic Church is a paedophile! (See second link below) The problem of course is not the few bad apples but the barrels that they reside in.
In the big scheme of things then and held up against scandals like these then, women achieving equality in this area is mind numbingly insignificant. Each time a new scandal emerges some television news show gathers a group of the relevant 'intellectuals' to ask; how can such a thing happen? They never get anywhere of course because it's the wrong question. The real question is that human nature being what it is these days why doesn't it happen even more often? Which of course it does, it's just that so much of it is hushed up or glossed over.
Things can only get worse for the Church as the vast majority of today's generation are riddled with the curse of moral abandonment combined with self-entitlement along with an almost universal negligence of others. They are poorly educated and generally undisciplined and unfamiliar with virtually any concept of right and wrong. You only have to remember the looting and riots last year to see the true nature of most young people. Smashing up shop windows and other pieces of someone else's property, they are overwhelmed with acquisitiveness but financially and morally irresponsible with absolutely no sense of community. These are the real issues that need to be addressed. Women Bishops! I ask you!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-13560976